""""""""Making Connections: Expanding our Web"""""""" will expand the dissemination and the partnerships of the Making Connections program. The Making Connections (MC) Partnership is a powerful and productive science education outreach group that offers the unique opportunity to leverage federal science education dollars for maximum impact. It involves the University of Washington, Group Health Cooperative, Pacific Science Center, the Washington Association for Biomedical Research and more than 100 NIH-funded scientists and other professionals in reaching over 50,000 students (12,000 from groups under-represented in science) and over 4000 teachers in Washington State. MC has developed three primary educational components that work synergistically to serve teachers, students and the public. These components -- the Brain Power Van, the Making Connections, Celebrating the Decade of the Brain summer institute and the Bioscientists in the Community and Classroom outreach component -- have been disseminated with great success throughout the state of Washington and in some other states. Making Connections: Expanding our Web (MCEW) proposes to conduct a comprehensive and logistically supported dissemination effort (Phase II) with a focus on the states of Idaho and Montana. """"""""Making Connections: Expanding our Web"""""""" will focus on extending dissemination through the following mechanisms: Brain Power will expand implementation to Idaho and Montana and partner with their science museums. The summer institute will support the participation of educators (including science museum educators) from outside the state of Washington and will hold, in conjunction with Brain Power, a training workshop for duplicating the Brain Power curriculum and assembly. The program will enhance its existing website to support educators as they duplicate the program's products and models and to connect teachers/classrooms directly with NIH-funded scientists. A new interactive web site, """"""""Animals and People Helping Each Other,"""""""" will extend the Bioscientist in the Classroom and Community component to a national audience. Internet browsers will be able to """"""""tour"""""""" a research facility, interview people who have benefited from animal research and confer with research scientists.
